Kidney Transplants

At 8:25 Thursday morning, Dr. Peter Schulam extracted a healthy kidney from a 60-year-old woman, slipped it into a bowl of sterile ice and wheeled it into the operating room next door. The donor, Nancy Seruto, a San Dimas mother, had never met the recipient, a 67-year-old retired flight attendant from Santa Ana. Less than two hours later, Seruto's husband was on the same operating table at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Another stranger, a 53-year-old Chatsworth mother of two, was giving him a kidney.

UC San Francisco has taken over a post-transplant clinic for kidney patients at Kaiser Permanente's San Francisco hospital, bringing to an end Kaiser's brief -- and scandal-plagued -- foray into the organ transplant business. The takeover means that UC doctors now will care for Kaiser's kidney transplant patients before, during and after their surgeries. Kaiser had been caring for about 1,500 patients who had already received transplants. "This is the last piece of the puzzle," said Dr.

UCI Medical Center has pledged to scrutinize every kidney turned down for patients on its transplant waiting list, following criticism that the hospital rejected an inordinate number of organs that might have saved some patients. The UC Irvine hospital in Orange will provide a written explanation for every organ refusal, and those decisions will be reviewed by top officials, including the university chancellor, according to a formal response to government inspectors released Friday.

A judge has agreed to allow New Jersey's most prolific serial killer to donate a kidney, but the donor and his doctors must meet conditions, such as having costs paid by the recipient's insurer. Superior Court Judge Paul W. Armstrong did not say when Charles Cullen might undergo the operation to remove one of his kidneys, which would go to the relative of a friend.

In mid-2004, more than 1,500 Kaiser Permanente patients awaiting kidney transplants in Northern California got form letters that forced them to change the course of their treatment. Kaiser would no longer pay for transplants at outside hospitals, even established programs with thousands of successes. Instead, adult patients would be transferred to a new transplant center run by Kaiser itself -- the first ever opened by the nation's largest HMO.

Twenty-five Kaiser Permanente patients in Northern California were denied the chance for new kidneys that were nearly perfectly matched to them last year during the troubled start-up of the giant HMO's kidney transplant program in San Francisco, a Times investigation has found. The patients missed this opportunity because they were in effect stranded between two transplant programs.

Federal regulators launched a surprise inspection Monday of Kaiser Permanente's fledgling kidney transplant program in San Francisco after The Times documented widespread problems there. Inspectors from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are reviewing patients' charts and internal documents, and interviewing staff members to determine whether Kaiser's transplant center meets standards to continue receiving federal funding, said Jeff Flick, the agency's regional administrator.

The state's top HMO regulator said late Tuesday that Kaiser Permanente would pay for kidney transplants at outside hospitals for patients dissatisfied with Kaiser's troubled new transplant program in Northern California. "Let me put it this way, they will do what the patients want them to do," said Cindy Ehnes, director of the California Department of Managed Health Care, in an interview.

State regulators Wednesday ordered Kaiser Permanente to fix communication foul-ups stemming from the abrupt suspension of its Northern California kidney transplant program after learning that some patients were unable to get satisfactory answers to their most basic questions.

Two Kaiser Permanente patients filed suit Monday against the giant HMO following the suspension of its Northern California kidney transplant program. The suit was filed by Irvine lawyer Lawrence Eisenberg on behalf of patients Lurena Fiore and Debra Adams, but it is seeking class-action status. It claims negligence, fraud and misrepresentation, and conspiracy. A Kaiser spokesman said he had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment on it.